Northwest - computer shutdown

Elmer Bowers flew out of his hometown of Savannah, Ga., at 11 a.m. Monday,
headed for his brother's funeral this morning in Rapid City, S.D. That's called
leaving plenty of time for error.

And error was just what he found.

After encountering delays in Atlanta and Cleveland, he finally reached the
airport in Minneapolis at 5 p.m. Tuesday, just in time to be caught up in the
computer shutdown that was affecting Northwest Airlines flights around the
world.

"I walked up to the counter for my 8:15 flight and the lady said, 'I don't know
about that one,' " Bowers said. "I told her, 'My brother's funeral is at 10:30 in
the morning!'

"When I had cancer and almost died, we made a pact that we'd be at each
other's funeral no matter where we lived. My brother's last wish was that I
would be his head pallbearer."

People who overheard his story Tuesday advised him to rent a car and hit the
road, in what was threatening to turn into a reenactment of the movie "Planes,
Trains, and Automobiles." As of the time he was interviewed, he did expect to
leave on time but said this was the last thing he needed.

Most of those affected by Northwest's computer problems at Minneapolis-St.
Paul International Airport seemed to encounter only brief delays, even when
their flights were canceled and they had to rebook. Others, though, spent hours
there and some were expecting, as of early evening when they were
interviewed, to spend the night at a hotel.

Angie Berlanga of Chicago was flying to Missoula, Mont., for a job interview
Tuesday afternoon when the plane turned around after an hour in the air, she
said.

It re-landed in Minneapolis at about 1:30 p.m. The computer problem kicked
her flight to 8:55 p.m., she said.

"It's inconvenient," Berlanga said. "I'm upset because I had to call everyone
and let them know I'll be later, so that makes everything late."

Besides having a fairly busy slate of business travelers, Tuesday was a heavier
air travel day than it might otherwise have been, Northwest officials said,
because of the start of school spring break, and many people were heading
south.

Among them were Dan Plein of Red Wing, Minn., and his kids, Justin, 15,
Missy, 11, and Elle, 9. They were heading for Fort Myers, Fla., to take in the
Twins spring training camp. Or they thought they were, until they arrived at the
airport.

They sat in a tired row, waiting, uncertain of their chances. "The kids have
been pretty good ever since I got some pizza in them," Dan Plein said.

Marrion Walsh was coming the other way: returning from Phoenix to her
hometown of Fargo, N.D. She arrived about 1 p.m., in plenty of time for a 3
p.m. departure.

"First they said they were delaying it to 3:10. Then they said the computers
were down," Walsh said. She said she assumed it was routine and didn't learn
until a couple of hours later that the problem was more serious.

"They just left it at that 3:10 delay," she said. "Then at about 5:30 they
canceled it." She rebooked and was waiting Tuesday night, expecting to be able
to take a flight leaving at 10 p.m.

Dan Malec and Michelle Busch, both of Bozeman, Mont., had been at the
airport since 10:30 a.m. They were supposed to board an early afternoon flight
for home, but the flight was canceled. They were rescheduled for the 4:55 p.m.
flight, but after the computers went down only Malec's name was on that flight.
They both decided to wait for the 8:55 p.m. flight to Montana.

Busch said they called friends and family members and had them go to
Northwest's Web site, but the site also was down.

"There's some angry people," Malec said. "I think at this point, it's so
ridiculous. At the beginning, it was frustrating. And the most frustrating part
was the lack of information."

Answers

This post perhaps illustrates why the Y2K problem got blown so far
out of porportion -- "filtering" of information by people to fit
their own preconceptions. It's labeled as "Northwest -- Computer
Shutdown." But, Northwest's computers never shut down and are
running just fine. This one has nothing to do with computers, Y2K
compliant or not.

I live in Minneapolis, Northwest's hub. I subscribe to the Star
Tribune Newspaper, from which this article came. What happened was
this. The main fiber optic cable connecting Northwest's operation
center here with the rest of the world was cut by a cable installer
from a competing telecommunications company. The accident took place
some distance from the Northwest facility. The culprit was McLeod
Communications, which was installing its own cable. Their workers
apparently missed while digging and cut the U.S. West Cable serving
Northwest. McLeod says its US West's fault for not properly marking
the cable location. US West says they marked the cable just fine,
and McLeod's workers are just a bunch of idiots. This is big news
here; the TV and paper are filled with pictures of the cut cable, etc.

Interestingly, Norwest was able to operate all but about 100 of its
flights using "manual backup"; i.e., telephone lines, off site
operation, etc. So much for "cascading cross defaults"; apparently,
even in our modern world, it's possible to operate a large airline
reasonably efficiently without access to the main computer system.

But, what I find facinating is how a telephone/data cable
installation accident found its way to this forum as a computer
outage. I suspect that this sort of data filtering is what allowed
so many people to isolate themselves from the reality of things and
convince themselves and others that TEOTWAWKI was an actual Y2K
possibility.

Very sad. But not unusual with airline computer systems. Strangely,
Northwest have a reputation for reliability . . . as noted here . .

MINNEAPOLIS -- (Feb. 2) -- Northwest Airlines is the "On-Time Airline
of the Decade" among the seven U.S. network airlines based on the
statistics just released by the Department of Transportation (DOT).
Data collected by DOT from 1990 through 1999 show Northwest to
have an overall on-time performance of 80.6 percent, more than a full
point ahead of the next network carrier.

Also, far from being a Y2K glitch, this particular problem was caused
by a sliced network cable. This in itself is quite typical in the
busy, hectic and above all "sharp" environment of an airport . .

Sliced cable disrupts Northwest

A sliced fiber-optic line crippled Northwest Airlines' scheduling
computers for about 2 1/2 hours Tuesday afternoon, forcing the carrier
to cancel scores of flights and causing hours-long delays in others
around the world.

http://www.pioneerplanet.com/

It sure is nice to hear about all these little problems which are
occurring in everyday life (just as they did last year, and the year
before that, etc). Amazing how technical people can always put things
right though eh ? {G}

From what I can see on the other thread [or in that dream I had] SOME
folks simply don't BELIEVE that this was caused by a cut cable. They
feel that this is simply an excuse to cover up the REAL reason for
this temporary failure. SHOWING the cut cable doesn't represent
proof any more than showing the lights on at rollover represented
proof. Wasn't it Ed Yourdon who suggested that generators were
keeping the lights on at rollover?

Notice how the major TV channels never mentioned this? If it wasn't
for someone finding that report, no body anywhere would know about
this.

They sliced the cable long after the Y2k problem hit while no one was
watching.

This was all done because they knew up front that when the problem
hit, they would not have to honor the discount tickets or give any
frequent flier miles.

More money for "the Owners".

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